First female Ambassador from Ireland to U.S. making quite a splash

Anne Anderson with President and Mrs. Obama during a reception at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 2009.
Photo by: The White House

New Irish Ambassador to the United States Anne Anderson is already making a splash as the first-ever woman ambassador from Ireland.

Thursday night she was warmly greeted at the Irish America magazine Wall Street 50 by among others, Northern Ireland’s First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, as 300 Irish from Wall Street cheered.

She was officially welcomed by the Irish in Washington at a reception at the home of Elizabeth Frawley Bagley, former U.S. Ambassador to Portugal and a long standing friend of Ireland who once worked for Senator Edward Kennedy.

The Washington Post “reliable source” column reported that Anderson said “It’s a delightful, extra source of pride to be the first woman ambassador.”

“It gives me pleasure as an individual, of course, but also in what it says about modern Ireland and the strides we are making toward ensuring that women have their rightful place in the country. So there’s a little bit of personal pride — I won’t deny that — but there’s a real national pride in all of this.”

Anderson, 61 served as ambassador to France and the United Nations before Washington.

The Post even asked her about her un-Irish sounding last name.

“I think it’s Scandinavian via Scotland to Ireland — but I am talking about 200 years ago,” she told them. “That’s the family lore. I’m always encouraging Americans to explore the genealogy and family tree, and I haven’t done it myself. But my mother’s from Limerick and my father from Tipperary and they both go back for generations.”

She also got a rousing reception at the Irish America magazine Wall Street 50 in Manhattan on Thursday night.